


Smiles

by therune



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-04-15
Packaged: 2017-11-03 17:12:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short answer: Jane gets a basketball to the head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smiles

This time it's not a baseball, but rather a basketball that hits the side of Jane's head. He has time to grin at Lisbon, tell her not to worry, he'll shrug it off, before his eyes roll back and he collapses.  
Cho suggests to leave him there in the pile of leaves since he seemed to enjoy it last time, but Lisbon says no.  
They'll get Jane to a hospital, just to be sure.

They wait in the hallway, but they're not too worried. Lisbon talks on the phone to her boss and explains that their lead was wrong: the murderer was right-handed and the suspect - the man who threw the ball in the first place - was left-handed.  
Rigsby and van Pelt check in, they also didn't find the killer.  
Lisbon is about to tell Cho to pursue their next lead when a nurse comes up to them and announces that Mr Jane is awake now.  
And indeed he is, sitting up from the hospital bed, hair rumpled, suit full of wrinkles and a smile.

It's a weird smile. Lisbon has seen dozens of Jane-smiles: she knows smirking-because-I-have-a-plan, I'm-laughing-at-you, oh-hey-tea and even the sad little smile that he gets sometimes when he's thinking about his family.  
She knows his phony smiles, his predatory smiles, the baiting smiles, the too-innocent smiles, the grins, the smirks and even the grimace that doesn't even pretend to be a smile anymore and is just a lot of teeth and cold eyes.  
This one is different.  
It's open, unguarded, and happy. It's a bit like those smiles when he's on the beach, underneath the warm sun, with toes curling in the sand and the breeze in his hair.  
But totally different all the same.  
The smile is not Jane's. But it's on his face.  
He turns and looks at her.  
There is nothing in his eyes, no twinkle, no glow, not even a hint of hey-Lisbon.  
"Hi there," he says.  
He even sounds different. Not really, not that anyone would notice, but Lisbon does.  
Somehow, that's not Jane.  
"Don't mind me asking, but who are you?"  
She can't speak for a second.  
"And for that matter, who am I?"  
That man on the bed isn't Patrick Jane, con-man turned consultant. He is not the man on a crusade against Red John. He is not a widower. He hasn't lost his child.  
She sees what Jane, what Patrick could have been.  
And that breaks her heart.


End file.
